Metal Heart
by iseefireandrain
Summary: AU. It's been three weeks since Liz received a call that Red has "died", something she has not been dealing with very well. As she soon quickly finds out, what she thought is not at all what it seems when he stands before her, a robot. Ultron-Red/Liz fic.


This is an AU/Avengers crossover I thought of out of nowhere. I thought it would be awesome, but I don't know what others will think.

* * *

 **Metal Heart**

Elizabeth sits in the car near the outer building of the Post Office, watching the lights glow brightly from shops and industrial buildings surrounding her, how clusters of people walked past, stuck in their own happy, content little worlds.

She has found herself doing this every night for the past three weeks, when the concept of sleep abandoned her. The bite of the pre-mix canned drink seeps through her jeans, through her gloves as she grasps onto it with her fingers. As she brings the can up to her mouth, it fizzes past her lips as she takes a swallow in, the liquid tangy and cold, yet somehow soothing.

She catches herself staring at the Post Office, unable to think of anything else but what it felt like to walk into it, to take the ride down the elevator to where the space opened up into the FBI's secret headquarters. It has been weeks since she has so much as stepped foot into the Post Office again.

Truthfully, she felt she had no reason to anymore.

She had resigned from the task-force just last week, and Harold Cooper, he had responded so mercifully, so understandingly. Cooper understood that there was no reason for her to come back anymore. With _him_ gone, there was not much point to anything anymore.

She takes in another slurp of the pre-mix gin and tonic and, barely seconds later, already the can is empty. She reaches down, grabbing another can from inside the grocery bag hidden beneath the passengers seat, and opens it, sipping in compulsive, desperate gulps.

Alcohol seems to be the only cure for the numbness now. It's been weeks and, still, that hollow numbness is there. She only truly begins to feel like her old self once she has a few drinks into her; the liquor mellowing her out and taking away the emptiness, at least for a while.

She thinks about that call she received, the call that changed everything. Grief rises in her throat and her eyes moisten.

 _"Keen speaking."_

 _"Keen, it is Dembe."_

 _"Dembe?"_

 _"It's about Raymond. Something is wrong."_

 _"What do you mean?"_ At the time, she had so foolishly assumed something had happened. He got captured by an adversary, a vengeful Blacklister. She wasn't expecting what she had heard next.

 _"Raymond is gone."_

 _"Gone? Where? He's fled the country?"_

 _"No, he...he's gone, Agent Keen. He's dead."_

It has been weeks since that call, since she last heard from Dembe. Denial. At first, she felt in such denial. No, it couldn't be possible, it wasn't true. Raymond Reddington had been injured over the months of working with her as partners and still, the man always came back strong as ever, no matter how bad his wound was. Nothing could take the Concierge of Crime down- or so she had naively believed. Raymond and dead in the same sentence had sounded so wrong.

She had returned to the Post Office the next morning, expecting Red to turn up as he always did; alive, in the flesh, dressed in one of his fine three piece suits and a matching fedora, ready to explain who their next target would be on his list. All she got instead, when she entered the Blacksite that morning, was a haunting silence as she entered after disembarking the elevator. Agent Navabi was there as was Aram. Cooper, Ressler. They all had their heads hung low and were having a moment of stunned, stilted silence. Apparently they couldn't believe the news themselves of Red's untimely death.

Liz had realized it was true then. What she thought was impossible had actually happened. There would be no more capturing Blacklister's. No more Red to talk to. No more hearing his husky, smoky voice surrounding her. No more clutching her hand or embracing her when she was upset and in need for comfort.

Red was gone. He was dead.

There was no point in sticking around. Liz had resigned- the only thing she felt she could do.

It wouldn't have been the same without Red there. She hadn't realized how much he had meant to her, until all of this had happened. It's funny how it never occurred to her how much she had taken him for granted, how much she loved him and appreciated his words of wisdom, until something like this happened and he was permanently taken away from her.

* * *

When Liz wakes the next morning, her head is pounding, her mouth dry.

She wakes up feeling this way every day now. It's the drinking that does it to her and she knows that. It's ironic how the only thing that makes that painful numbing, hollow sensation in her chest go away is also the one thing that makes her feel like the walking dead when she wakes up of a morning.

She sits up in bed, her hand searching for her phone from where she placed it on the dresser last night. One new message, one missed call. She checks the caller I.D, but it's an unknown number; a number she hasn't received a call from before.

Groggily, she presses the redial button to call the person back while laying back down under the sheets, the blood thrumming to her head. The call clicks through and she clears her throat, speaking. "Hi, this is Elizabeth Keen. I seem to have missed a call from you?"

 _"Elizabeth. Lizzie."_

She recognizes that voice- though it sounds different, tinny and echoic, as if he is under water or in a box or something similarly strange- and her body jerks as if she's been electrocuted at the sound of it. No, it's not true. This is a dream. A sick, unfair dream. Or if it isn't a dream, then someone is playing a sordid trick on her.

Reddington is dead. Gone. Never coming back. He cannot be speaking on the phone right now.

"Red?" she croaks out hesitantly still, her throat tight. No, it can't be. It's a sick joke. Her head hammers brutally with anger, her hand shaking. Though her voice is quiet and slurred, she tries to sound forceful, "Who is this? Look, I don't know who the hell this is, but clearly, this is some sick and twisted joke that I don't find all that funny to be-"

There is a crackling noise and, suddenly, another voice is on the phone, "Elizabeth." Dembe. Relief fills her at the familiarity of his voice. He would know what is going on.

"Dembe. What... what's going on? Why did I hear-"

"-You must come. I will pick you up in an hour. Things will be explained then."

* * *

Driving.

Dembe was taking her to somewhere, though every time she asked for a proper explanation into why she thought she had heard Red's voice on the phone, he insisted that she wait, that things could not be properly understood until she saw for herself.

Her hands shake and she feels nauseous while sitting in the back seat of the Mercedes. Usually, she does not feel motion sickness while being in the car. She wonders if it is all the drinking that she has been doing lately to dull her grief that is doing it to her. The drive takes about half an hour, until Dembe's pull up at an abandoned warehouse on the wharf. Another car is parked near the opening of the warehouse, though she does not know who it belongs to.

A part of her almost foolishly expects Red to appear, to walk out to meet her. But it's a ridiculous thought. Red is dead.

"What is this place?" she asks Dembe anxiously as she gets out of the car. She can't feel her legs, though miraculously she manages to follow him towards the door of the tin warehouse. It feels as if her legs have dropped off, as if she has lost complete feeling from her waist downwards.

A person in the warehouse emerges to meet them, though it isn't Red. Mr Kaplan.

"This way, dearie," she says, a note of sympathy in her tone as she scrutinizes Elizabeth's appearance.

Liz suspects she must look a mess, slightly hungover and disheveled. Being hungover is something she's been experiencing mostly every morning ever since it happened, so it wouldn't surprise her if she looked it. She follows after Dembe and Kaplan, her curiosity getting the better of her.

"Are you sure you weren't followed?" She hears Kaplan ask Dembe. "No one saw you come in?"

"No, there was no one tailing us. Traffic was light."

Inside the warehouse, it is dark with minimal lighting. There is a hole in the roof that emits a glow of light, moths and bugs swirling directly in it.

A part in the warehouse is sectioned off by what looks like plastic strips and, turning back to look at her, Mr Kaplan separates a part of plastic open with her hands to help Liz through.

"What is this place?" Liz tries again softly.

"Not just yet, dearie. You'll see."

Her head pounds, her mouth still dry as she squeezes through. Another part in the corner is sectioned off, looking oddly like a make-shift hospital area. She hears Dembe speaking to someone softly, then the sound of metal clanking against the concrete floor. There's an odd sound- a whirring sound of mechanical parts, metal scraping against the floor. It's too dark to see- the warehouse filled with strange shadows and bleak darkness- but she sees it then.

Light. Red light.

A shadow emerges, moving towards her with mechanical slowness. With the shadows movement she hears almost the churning of gears. The lights are eyes, it occurs to her. The red lights are eyes, burning bright and fluorescent. They are staring right at her.

As the thing moves closer, it dawns onto Liz what it is then. A robot. A large robot, about six-feet-tall and towering over her, with red burning eyes like fire. It's jaw moves, clanging back and forth, fire red glowing inside its mouth, as words spill from it in time with the jaw movement, _"Hello, Lizzie."_ The eerie canniness to Red's voice, it makes her shiver, her gut squirming.

Now she thinks she understands why the voice- _Red's voice_ \- had sounded so tinny, so machine-like.

She steps back in terror, gasping, nearly bumping into Mr Kaplan from where she stands behind her.

"What the hell is this?" she chokes out fearfully, her eyes fixed on the glowing ones that seem to stare back at her. "Why... why does he sound like Red? What have you done to him? How is this happening right now?"

 **This is probably a ridiculous idea, I know. But I wanted to write something different- and after watching Age of Ultron, I couldn't resist.**


End file.
